Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Ascendance

by David R. George III

  “Why?” Aleco asked.

  “That’s the big question, isn’t it?” O’Brien said. “That, and what should we do about it?” Having the starbase enveloped by the shape-shifter had made the chief engineer feel claustrophobic—not an easy thing to accomplish, considering the great size of DS9. He had also found the experience unnerving, almost like being swallowed alive.

  “It seems to me that this must be an attempt to communicate,” Blackmer said.

  “I might agree,” O’Brien said, “if the shape-shifter hadn’t done the same thing to the Defiant and then immediately left the area.”

  “Do you expect that to happen now?” Ro asked.

  “You mean as soon as it finishes molding itself into a ­silver-plated Deep Space Nine?” O’Brien asked. “I don’t know. If it reproduces the starbase’s structural integrity field and its thrusters, it would have the capability of moving away in that form. But if it leaves, what does that mean? And if it stays, what does that mean?”

  Blackmer leaned forward on the table. “The entity took on the form of the Defiant, but not as an attempt to communicate,” he said. “It immediately set course for the Bajoran system.”

  “More specifically, for the wormhole,” Ro noted. “But the shape-shifter didn’t head for Bajor only after its encounter with the Defiant. As soon as it left the planetary system housing the research facility, it started in this direction.”

  “Again, why?” Aleco said. “Is it from the Gamma Quadrant and trying to return home? Is it a Founder? Or did it learn of the Founders when it linked with Odo?”

  “It was traveling toward the wormhole,” O’Brien said, recalling the sequence of events just past. “We tried to contact it—first Commander Blackmer and then you, ­Captain—and we even threatened to fire if it did not stop, but we didn’t actually use our weapons until after it turned away from the wormhole and toward Deep Space Nine.”

  “And we now know that we can’t stop it,” Blackmer said.

  “Maybe it didn’t know that until after we fired on it,” Ro said. “Our first phaser beams struck the entity. It was only with our subsequent weapons fire that it determined a way to avoid our attacks.”

  “That’s right,” O’Brien said. “Our weapons are ineffective against this shape-shifter, and it knows that now, too. So why doesn’t it just resume its course and go through the wormhole to wherever it’s going?”

  The four officers regarded one another silently. Nobody had an answer. Blackmer held up his open hands and leaned back in his chair, at an obvious loss. O’Brien agreed: none of it made sense to him.

  “Is it possible,” he finally ventured, “that we’re giving this entity too much credit? Could it be that it’s not a shape-shifter in the same way that Odo is, that the Founders are?”

  “What do you mean?” the captain asked.

  “Maybe this entity is alive, but it’s not intelligent,” O’Brien said. “Maybe the choices it’s making aren’t really choices; maybe they’re instinctive responses . . . simple reactions to complex stimuli.”

  “Like a cephalopod changing its color and texture,” Blackmer said.

  “But this isn’t camouflage,” Ro said.

  “Not all metachromatic animals change color to disguise themselves,” O’Brien said. “But maybe this is a form of camouflage . . . an attempt to assimilate to surroundings. Or maybe it’s just a physical consequence . . . mindless.”

  “But if it is just a reaction,” Aleco said, “there still has to be an evolutionary reason for it. In order for such an autonomic response to survive in a species over time, it has to serve a useful purpose.”

  “Or at least not prove a detriment to survival,” Blackmer said.

  “That’s if the species evolved and wasn’t engineered,” Ro said. “We know that the Founders essentially created the Jem’Hadar and the Vorta.”

  “Do you think that’s what this shape-shifter is?” O’Brien asked. “A product of the Founders’ genetic engineering?”

  “No, not really,” Ro said. “I suppose it’s possible, but I can’t imagine them attempting to manipulate their own kind.” The captain looked weary to O’Brien, and he completely understood. He had been close to getting into bed himself when the red alert had sounded.

  “We may not know why the shape-shifter is doing what it’s doing, and we may not be able to puzzle it out,” the chief engineer said, “but we are going to have to figure how to deal with it.”

  “Even if we could determine a way to successfully attack it,” Blackmer said, “I don’t really see a reason to do that. I know it killed at least two people when it escaped the research facility, but it didn’t harm anybody aboard the Defiant, and it hasn’t harmed anybody here.”

  “So I guess we’re back to finding a means of communicating with it,” O’Brien said.

  “Or we could just ignore it,” Aleco said, and he shrugged. “I know it’s not Starfleet’s usual way of addressing a problem, but what else can we do?”

  “I see your point,” Ro said, “but I don’t think that either Starfleet Command or the Bajoran government will accept that as a solution.”

  “And it would probably discourage a lot of traffic from coming to the starbase,” O’Brien said.

  Ro sighed heavily. In addition to being fatigued, she seemed more than a little frustrated. O’Brien couldn’t blame her on that score either. He thought she would say something more, but then the tones of the comm system interrupted.

  “Hub to Captain Ro,” came the voice of Ensign Elvo Minnar, who had taken over for Aleco at tactical. “The shape-shifter has finished forming into a copy of Deep Space Nine, and something’s happened.”

  Ro didn’t bother to respond verbally. She pushed up out of her chair and strode toward the door that led into the Hub. O’Brien immediately stood up, as did Blackmer and Aleco, and the three men followed the captain out of the conference room.

  * * *

  Blackmer stood with O’Brien and Aleco beside the captain at the sit table, studying the holographic image of the shape-shifter there. It looked like DS9, if the starbase had been crafted entirely in silver. To Blackmer, it looked dreamlike.

  “This is a depiction of the entity at the moment it completed forming this shape,” Ensign Zhang said from the communications console. “Not long after, this is what happened.”

  Blackmer watched the hologram closely, but he almost missed the lone bit of movement. It took place on the top, flat side of the x-ring, in a rounded, rectangular depression. A hatch slid open. On the real Deep Space 9, it led to one of the runabout hangars.

  Blackmer waited to see if anything would emerge from the space, but nothing did. He pondered the reason for it, but he discovered that the captain had developed her own interpretation. He immediately wished she hadn’t.

  “It’s an invitation,” Ro said.

  But not an invitation we’re going to accept, Blackmer thought, but refrained from saying. He understood his responsibilities both as the starbase’s chief of security and as its acting first officer, but he also knew that he should allow the captain her say before opposing her. Perhaps she would not choose to put herself in harm’s way.

  “Elvo, how closely does the entity match Deep Space Nine’s dimensions?” Ro asked.

  The Betazoid ensign peered down from the tactical station into the Well, his dark eyes intense. “It is essentially an exact replica, Captain, and not just in dimension,” he said. “I’m reading fusion reactors, shield generators, phaser banks, even the equipment to produce a thoron shield.”

  “Is all of it functioning?” Ro asked.

  “Much of it is,” Minnar said, “but even though there appears to be an infrastructure for life-support, I’m not detecting internal gravity, atmosphere, or lighting.”

  Ro nodded, and Blackmer could see that she had already reached her decision. Before she could articulate it, he tried to outflank her. “I volunteer to take a runabout over there and investigate,” he said.

&nb
sp; The captain gazed at him appraisingly, and for just a moment, he thought she would permit him to lead the mission he knew she wanted to undertake herself. “I think we do need to investigate,” Ro said, “but the circumstances are too uncertain for me to allow a member of my crew to do it.” She paused, then said, “I’ll go.”

  “Captain, I can’t let you do that,” Blackmer said. “The situation is too uncertain, and therefore too dangerous.

  “Jeff, we need answers,” Ro said. “We can’t just sit here and wait to see what will happen. For all we know, the shape-shifter out there could be marking this area for an invasion.”

  Blackmer shook his head. “You don’t believe that, Captain.”

  “No, I don’t,” Ro said, “but what I believe is immaterial. We have more than enough theories; what we need are facts. And that means sending somebody over there to get them.”

  “I don’t object to that,” Blackmer said. “I object—strongly—to you going over there.”

  “With all due respect, Captain,” O’Brien said, “I have to agree with Commander Blackmer. This crew needs its commanding officer.” The chief engineer didn’t add that it had not been even four months since the assassination, which had so profoundly impacted every person aboard Deep Space 9, and that they did not need to lose their captain on top of that. Still, Blackmer could see in O’Brien’s eyes that the chief thought it.

  Ro took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She walked away from the sit table and up the steps closest to her command chair, but she stopped once she reached the upper level of the Hub. When she turned around, she regarded Blackmer. “I appreciate your perspective, Commander,” she said, “and yours, too, Chief.” Blackmer took note of the captain’s use of his rank, since she typically practiced informality with her crew, referring to her subordinates by their given names. “I’m also sorry for the position I’ve put you in, Commander Blackmer. I made you acting first officer, and less than a week later, I’m undercutting your authority.”

  “Captain—” Blackmer began, but Ro held up a hand to stop him.

  “I urge you to make your objections to my decision in your first officer’s log, and in your security report,” the captain said. “I truly believe that the shape-shifter intended the opening of the runabout hatch—” She pointed toward the holographic image above the sit table. “—as an invitation. But I’ve also realized something else. Commander Stinson attempted to communicate over subspace with the entity, and it didn’t respond, other than to re-create the Defiant and leave the area. You also tried to communicate with it over subspace, Jeff, and it didn’t respond. But when I sent it a message, it turned toward Deep Space Nine.” Ro walked back down the steps and over to Blackmer. “The shape-shifter didn’t just offer an invitation. It offered it to me.”

  Although Blackmer could not dispute the captain’s account of events, it seemed more reasonable to him to attribute the timing of the entity’s course change to coincidence, rather than to the conclusion Ro had drawn. “Captain . . .” He didn’t finish, because he knew there was nothing more he could say to change Ro’s mind.

  * * *

  Ro piloted Senha away from Deep Space 9 and toward its duplicate—a duplicate clad in silver and alive. She wore an environmental suit, although she had set her helmet on the chair beside her at the runabout’s main console. She maintained an active comlink with Blackmer and the rest of the command crew in the Hub, but beyond providing an occasional status, she had said nothing since departing the starbase.

  Ro had left Blackmer in command. She had always found him a capable officer—at least after her initial, erroneous misgivings at the time of his transfer to DS9—and she believed that he had turned a corner in the crisis of confidence he’d suffered in the aftermath of the assassination. Starfleet Command had questioned his competence, and she had done so as well. Her review of his service record under her command acted not only to exonerate him of having made any mistakes, but also to demonstrate the keenness of his abilities and his dedication to duty.

  And do I recognize something of myself in him? Ro wondered. She had been much younger when a choice she’d made had resulted in the deaths of eight crewmates, and it had taken her a long time to recover from the completely justifiable actions that she nevertheless wished she could reverse. Like Blackmer, she came under the scrutiny of Starfleet Command, though she ended up paying a steeper price for that incident than Blackmer did for the assassination. In part, that was because Blackmer was not responsible for President Bacco’s death, but it was also partially the result of Ro standing by him. And that’s ultimately how I recovered: by somebody standing by me. Captain Picard supported Ro not once, but twice. Without him, she never would have been able to return to Starfleet, much less be permitted to advance from security chief to exec, and from exec to commanding officer. Even almost seven years after the fact, Ro sometimes found it difficult to believe that she had ever been promoted to the top post on Deep Space 9.

  The captain in no way regretted assigning Blackmer as the starbase’s interim first officer, but she did feel sorry that circumstances had unfolded to put him in such a difficult position. He had been right to speak out against his commanding officer conducting such an uncertain and potentially dangerous mission, but Ro also felt justified in refusing to risk the lives of her crew on what amounted to a hunch. Although she believed that the shape-shifter had specifically invited her to visit, she could not be sure.

  Up ahead, through the forward viewport of the runabout, the doppelgänger of Deep Space 9 grew closer. Ro scanned the structure. With impressive exactitude, the readings mimicked those of the original. Ro registered a lack of life-support functions, just as Ensign Minnar had reported, and no life-forms. It put the captain in mind of the construction of DS9. At some point, the exterior of the starbase had been completed, while efforts continued inside it to render it habitable.

  Ro narrated her findings—though not her personal thoughts—as she made them. The open channel on her environmental suit picked up her words and transmitted them back to the Hub, where Blackmer and the others monitored her progress. Other than Zhang, they said little; the communications officer periodically reaffirmed the continuing function of the comlink.

  Eventually, Ro said, “I am approaching the open runabout hangar.” The reproduction of Deep Space 9 looked completely familiar and recognizable, but its monochromatic sheen made it feel both unknown and alien. The idea that Ro would land the runabout on—and in—a living being unnerved her.

  As Senha neared the open hatch, the readings on the sensor panel changed. “I’m suddenly showing artificial gravity inside the hangar,” Ro said. “I’m also detecting increases in the levels of heat and light.” She paused, then said, “It seems as though it knows I’m coming.”

  “Captain,” said Blackmer, “I recommend that you don the helmet of your environmental suit before you land the runabout.” Ro could hear the concern behind her acting first officer’s words, even as he kept his voice level. Once Blackmer had come to understand that he could not prevent her from visiting the shape-shifter in its DS9 guise, he had suggested that she beam over, since the two structures were close enough to each other to accommodate transport. Ro considered the idea, but finally rejected it for two reasons. First, they could not be sure that the shape-shifter would not raise shields to prevent transport once she boarded. Second, the entity had proffered its invitation in a very specific manner—by way of the open runabout hangar—and the captain believed she would have the greatest chance for success in communicating with the shape-shifter if she met it on those terms. Blackmer had insisted on maintaining a transporter lock on Ro for as long as she remained off the starbase, and she had quickly acquiesced. Not only would it reassure Blackmer and the rest of her crew, but it would provide her a swift means of escape, should she need to beat a hasty retreat. Ro would willingly enter dangerous situations when the need arose, but she had no wish to die.

  “I’m putting my helmet on now
,” the captain told Blackmer, and she quickly did so. She would maintain the function of her environmental suit for as long as she was aboard the imitation starbase.

  “Understood,” Blackmer said. “Thank you, Captain.”

  Another reading appeared on Ro’s sensors. “A navigational beacon just activated,” she said. “I’m going to follow it into the hangar.”

  “Acknowledged,” Blackmer said.

  “One hundred meters,” Ro said, and she began counting down the distance by tens. At thirty meters, she stood up and peered through the forward viewport to her destination. “I can see part of the hangar,” she said. “It’s difficult to make out detail because the lighting level is low, but also because of the uniformity of color. Are you able to see?” A monitor in her helmet transmitted real-time images of what she saw back to DS9.

  “Affirmative, Captain,” Blackmer said. “We have it on-screen.”

  Senha continued to descend toward the starbase-­emulating shape-shifter. “Twenty meters,” she said, and then, “Ten meters,” and finally, “The runabout is passing through the open hatch.”

  Ro switched from impulse propulsion to antigravs to effect her landing. Senha alit gently. Ro placed the runabout on standby but did not power it down.

  “Captain,” Blackmer said anxiously, “the hatch is closing, and shields have activated.” That quickly, both of Ro’s avenues of escape—the runabout and the transporter—had been blocked.

  “I’m all right,” Ro said. “That’s standard operating procedure for Deep Space Nine, so perhaps the shape-shifter is imitating that as well.” Ro didn’t actually believe that—she thought that the entity wanted to ensure that she would not leave before it wished her to—but she didn’t want her crew to worry any more than necessary.

  Through the forward viewport, diffuse lighting from above revealed what looked like a standard hangar for auxiliary craft, despite its steely finish. It surprised Ro to see a runabout, as well as a work pod and a cargo management unit—also rendered all in silver. She squinted and could just distinguish the outline of the runabout’s registry on its bow: NCC-77548. Ro knew that the number—one greater than that of Senha—belonged to Taaj.